Davy Jones's Locker
by 1i1ik4n5
Summary: Rango is trapped in Davy Jones's Locker with only a fragmented memory of how he got there. He knows that Davy Jones kidnapped his girl, Beans, but doesn't remember how. As he's wandering through the wasteland, he meets Captain Jack Sparrow. Both of them are going crazy, and each thinks the other might be a hallucination, but they have no choice but to work together.


_Rango slipped through the door leading to the brig. As he crept down the stairs, the sounds of fighting faded behind him. His heart lurched as the moldering cages came into view. Beans had to be here. _

_ "Rango," drawled a disembodied voice from right behind him. He jumped and whipped around to face Davy Jones, captain of the Flying Dutchman. Everyone on the cursed ship was horrible to look at, and the captain was no exception with his tentacle beard and sickly green skin. "She's not here, ya know." Rango swallowed his fear._

_ "Then where is she?" He cursed himself for not coming up with something cleverer. Jones laughed a deep hearty laugh, throwing his head back and holding his stomach with his crab claw hand._

_ "You be a right fool coming aboard this vessel, my friend. Your lady's already gone, and you're not far behind," he drew his sword, "Prepare to die, little lizard. Or maybe I should just step on ye to avoid gettin me sword dirty." Davy Jones had the advantage of size and most likely skill, but Rango had surprise on his side. He drew his knife, gripped it by the blade, and flung it right into Jones's chest. The tentacle man just laughed again. He snapped Rango up by the neck in his claw-hand. Jones smiled as Rango struggled for air, "You can't kill me that way. You see, I have no heart. Tell me, Rango, do ye fear death?" Tentacle beard pressed Rango against the bars, and somehow loosened his grip on the lizard enough for him to breathe. _

_"If you're going to kill me, just do it already," Rango wheezed. He smashed Rango against the bars, and his vision went black._

Rango woke up on the hard, rocky ground. Every inch of his body ached, his throat was dry, and it was just cold enough to be uncomfortable. He opened his eyes and was blinded by sunlight that seemed to come from everywhere at once. He closed his eyes to a squint, pushed himself into a sitting position, and looked around. From what he could see, he was in a wasteland. When he tried to remember what happened, all he got were confused flashes. He knew he'd been on a ship, and there was something he needed to find. Wait, how had he even gotten on the ship? Wasn't he the mayor of Dirt? Rango tried to think back to the last thing he remembered, but his memories were confused and jumbled in his mind. When he tried to put the confused flashes together, he only managed to give himself a headache. He looked down and saw that he was wearing pirate cloths. A dagger was strapped to his waist. It brought back more confusing flashes of memory- he remembered throwing it at someone with tentacles hanging from his face, and then slipping it out of the pocket of a foul smelling guard, or was it the other way around? Rango finally decided that trying to remember was pointless. He would just walk and try not to think. Walking through the wasteland was like walking on a treadmill. He wandered for what seemed like an eternity but didn't seem to get anywhere. And, he was pretty sure he wasn't even walking in a straight line. There were literally no landmarks to go by. His frustration grew until he couldn't stand it any longer. "WHAT IS THIS PLACE?" Rango shouted. His voice didn't even echo. It just faded into the wasteland. Rango collapsed and hugged his knees to his chest. "This can't be happening. This can't be happening," he whispered. "Wait," he said as he looked up, "This is ridiculous. I'm not going to get out of here by moping around. I need to go somewhere, do something," Rango stood up, "I am getting out of this place, whatever it takes. And now I'm talking to myself, which means I'm crazy."

"You're not crazy. You're dead," Said a disembodied female voice with a rough, western accent. Rango jumped and whipped around to see an attractive female lizard with brown curls wearing an old western style dress. He knew he should remember her, but when he tried, he only got more confused flashes. "Who are you?" he finally had to ask.

"Uh, I'm Beans? Remember? From the town of Dirt?" Rango just blinked. Beans bristled and burst into an angry ultimatum, talking faster and faster as she went, "How do you not remember who I am? You've known me for years! We went through so much together! You seriously don't remember helping me return the water to Dirt? What about when _you_ decided to investigate my great-great-great-great grandfather's heritage and got me sucked back in time to spend eternity on that cursed pirate ship, and-"

She literally froze up. "Beans?" Rango asked cautiously, terrified that anything he did would unleash another torrent of angry words. He poked at her once. She didn't move. "Beans? Are you still alive?"

"Beans! Where? Where are the beans?" Shouted another voice from behind Rango, making him jump 10 feet in the air. Seriously, people needed to stop sneaking up on him! He turned and saw a human pirate standing there. When he turned back to Beans, she was gone. "Hey, Lizard! If you know where we could find some beans, you best be telling me. You see, I'm starving, so I'm not in the best of moods right now." Rango turned back to the pirate. He had a head full of dreadlocks with random beads and even a few coins woven into them. His eyes were lined with black eyeliner, and like Rango, he wore cloths you'd expect to see on a pirate. Unlike Beans, Rango knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd never seen this man in his life.

"I was talking to a lizard named Beans," Rango clarified, "I'm just as hungry as you, and I don't know where any food is."

"What kind of lizard would name herself after food? In fact, what kind of lizard would name herself at all? Lizards can't talk! Ay, ye must be a hallucination. One does tend to go crazy in Davy Jones's locker."

The name triggered another absent memory. "That name!" Rango said, "It's familiar! Who's Davy Jones? Why does he have a locker? And… Who are you?"

"Who am I?" Said the pirate, "Well, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Maybe you've heard of me."

"Yes, well, I'm Rango, the sheriff of Dirt. You might have heard of _me_."

"Actually, I don't believe I have, mate. As for Davy Jones, he be the captain of the Flying Dutchman," The name triggered more disjointed flashes of memory involving moldering cabins, wading through an inch of water, and sick, wrong, combinations of sea creatures and people, "He be the reason I'm here-"

"Me too! He's the reason I'm here too"

"Hey, hey! Don't cut me off. Now where was I? Oh, who cares. All this talk be a waste of time. Funny, I've no idea why my mind would conjure up a talking lizard but ye best be getting to the ship with the other hallucinations."

Rango blinked, "Other hallucinations? You have a ship? How is that even possible?"

It was possible. Jack led him back to a majestic pirate ship with black sails. The "Black Pearl," as Captain Sparrow had called it, was sitting on the generic white rock of the wasteland. There wasn't a drop of water in sight. Sparrow shimmied up a rope that was hanging over the side. Rango didn't know why the captain thought he could sail the ship with no water or wind, but he needed to find out what else the pirate knew, so he climbed aboard. Jack Sparrow, or Captain Jack Sparrow, as he insisted on being called, was definitely crazy. Rango climbed over the rail of the ship to find him shouting orders at imaginary people, all of them named Jack Sparrow. "Mr. Sparrow! Get up there and loose those sails! And you, Mr. Sparrow, man the wheel, Mr. Sparrow, give me that peanut! No that's my peanut!" Yep, this guy was delusional. Rango probably should have felt sorry for him or something, but the captain's crazy outbursts only made him worry about his own sanity. This place seemed like it would make anyone crazy. It was only a matter of time before Rango was running around, shouting at hallucinations. He was already talking to himself, and was Beans even real? What if all those confusing flashes of memories were lies made up by his addled mind? Was he a lizard at sea or the sheriff of an old western town called Dirt? Who was Beans and why couldn't he remember her? Rango only knew that thinking about it would drive him crazy even faster. Fortunately, being a part of Captain Jack's 'crew' didn't leave much room for thought. The pirate was constantly ordering him to do things around the ship. Rango must have worked on a ship at some time in his life, because the tasks Jack forced him to do were surprisingly familiar.

He had his second Beans hallucination just before the crabs came. Rango was hanging from one of the ship's sails, struggling with the last knot that held it to the mast, when Beans's voice called down to him from the crow's nest, "What are doing? Stop messing around and just come rescue me already!" From Rango's point of view, she didn't seem to need rescuing. She was hanging casually from the crow's nest, glowering at him. "What?" Rango shouted back. Yeah, he sure had a way with words. How he'd manage to even capture this girl's attention before was a complete mystery. Her glare got even more intense, and Rango flinched in anticipation of another angry rant that didn't make any sense. But the rant never came. Beans had frozen again. She was hanging off the crow's nest with a murderous look on her face, completely unmoving as if she was some lizard version of a goddess of wrath that had been carved from wood and fused to the railing. How did she do that? A second later, she unfroze and said, "… and you need to get your lousy tail to the Flying Dutchman and kill Davy Jones before he gets that medallion and makes me a permanent part of the ship!"

"How do you just freeze up like that?" Rango blurted out. What was it about this girl that made it so hard to be smooth? Rango had thought her expression couldn't hold any more hate, but he'd been wrong. Rango was almost relieved when something smashed into his head, almost knocking him off the sail. Beans was gone again when Rango looked up. His head was throbbing, and he almost lost his grip on consciousness for a moment. Rango slid down one of the ropes and landed on the deck of the ship. "Jack Sparrow!" he yelled.

"HEY! THAT'S CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW YOU MANGY BAG OF SCALES!"

"You threw a rock at me! What was that for?" Rango shouted back. He heard the captain's footsteps coming towards the ship and suddenly stop. Rango ran to the other side of the ship and looked overboard to see the pirate staring down at a perfectly smooth white rock. It was the first variation in the barren landscape Rango had seen, and the frustration he'd been feeling since waking up in this forsaken place lifted a little. Finally, something was new! Maybe there was a chance they could escape after all! Sparrow picked up the rock and flung it far into the distance. The thud of it hitting the ground was sucked into the emptiness like every other sound was. Sparrow turned to inspect a rope hanging from his ship. Rango's desire to follow the rock warred with his fear of getting lost in the dead land and being alone again. Then, there was a movement in the distance. Was the rock moving? Suddenly, the ship lurched and moved forward with the sound of thousands of tiny legs scuttling against the stone. Sparrow didn't notice until the line he was staring at started to move. "Jack, uh captain Jack, I mean," Rango shouted, trying to make his voice heard over the scuttling, "Get on the ship!" Sparrow grabbed for the line and tripped, so he was being dragged behind the black pearl. Rango Started to run to his aid and then heard Jack's shouts of "The sails! Get the sails!" Rango made several failed attempts to climb the mast. It was easy enough when the ship was sitting still, but when it was moving, that was a different story. At one point, Rango tripped and somehow managed to get his leg caught in a rope that whipped him up into the air upside down. Jack Sparrow, who had somehow managed to get back on the ship, ran right past him, no doubt going for the sails. The line slipped, finally dropping him on the deck where he slammed his head again, and he finally lost consciousness.

When he woke up, the captain was nowhere to be seen, and his ship had disappeared. There was nothing in sight but a long, sandy beach and an endless ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. Rango looked back and saw sand dunes and a deep trench where the captain's ship had been. Panic settled into Rango's stomach. He needed to find the captain or he'd never escape. Rango sprinted after the trail, but the sand dragged at his feet, making it impossible to run. The ship's trail became fainter and fainter until every trace of it was gone. Rango eventually had no choice but to return to the beach. How was he supposed to get out of here now? He had no ship, and he was completely alone. Rango thought about wading out into the ocean and trying to swim out, but the idea gave him chills. No, he wasn't going anywhere near that water. Finally, Rango just laid down on the beach and gave up. He was going to die, unless he was already dead. If that was the case, he'd lay here forever and go insane. An eternity passed, and not even a hallucination of Beans came to talk to him. It wasn't long before Rango stopped thinking and started saying everything that came to his mind. "Well, I guess I'm going crazy; probably going to start seeing different versions of myself like Captain Sparrow. Sparrow… I wonder if he even made it out. What was with those crabs anyway? They probably just came for him." Rango started picking at a loose thread on his shirt, "This is hopeless! I can't even remember who I am. I know my name is Rango, but who's Beans? Am I the sheriff of Dirt? No, maybe I'm a swashbuckling pirate sailing the high seas! ARRgh, ye mates! I be captain Rango, the former sheriff of Dirt. And yes, Dirt happens to be a very real place, for your information," the thread started to come loose. His shirt was unraveling as fast as his sanity seemed to be. With his other hand, Rango pulled the dagger out of his belt and waved it around, saying, "Unhand my lady Beans, you tentacle… uh, face. Or I'm a gonna hurt ye. Yaaargh, yargh, yargh!" Rango finally looked down, and his shirt was gone, reduced to a pile of string on the sand. He sat down again and sighed, "I can't even go insane," he complained and put his head in his hands. There was a sudden splashing sound, and Rango's head whipped up. What? Was this another hallucination? A large sea turtle was paddling lazily in the deadly calm water. Rango looked at the pile of thread at his feet. If he could lasso that turtle, there might still be a chance of escape. His mind flashed to an unexpectedly pleasant memory of Beans. They were standing on a cliff, looking out at the desert. Stars spread out above their heads, casting a silvery glow over the whole scene. Rango didn't remember what they'd been talking about, but unlike the other incomprehensible flashes of memory, this one didn't make Rango want to bury his head in the sand. It made him want to go on, to live. He had to escape and find Beans. And that turtle wouldn't stay paddling lazily in the water a few feet away forever.


End file.
